Sunday, July 24, 2011

OSLO (Reuters) - The man suspected of Norway's gun and bomb massacre had belonged to an anti-immigration party and opposed multi-culturalism, Islam and the "cultural Marxists" of the establishment, web postings, acquaintances and officials said on Saturday.Anders Behring Breivik was accused of gunning down 85 people at a youth camp and killing another seven in a bomb attack on Friday.

"Before we can start our crusade we must do our duty by decimating cultural marxism," said a caption under a video called "Knights Templar 2083" on the YouTube website.

At the end of the approximately 12 minute clip, several images appear of Breivik, including one of him in a Navy Seal type scuba diving outfit pointing an automatic weapon.

Two pictures also appeared earlier on a Facebook page created on July 17. The video was uploaded to YouTube on July 22, the day of the attacks.

A Norwegian discussion website provided a link to an 1,500 page electronic book by an individual called Andrew Berwick, who also uploaded the video. In the book, Berwick is revealed as Anders Behring Breivik.

It could not be verified who posted the video or who wrote the book.

Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on its website reported that at least one Finnish politician, a member of the populist True Finns, received the e-mail manifesto on Friday afternoon.

"Once you decide to strike, it is better to kill too many than not enough, or you risk reducing the desired ideological impact of the strike," the book said.

Norway has traditionally been open to immigration, which has been criticised by the Progress Party, of which Breivik was for a short time a member. The Labour Party, whose youth camp Breivik attacked, has long been in favour of immigration.

In the book, there is a direct reference to the summer camp where he writes about infiltrating the youth camp of a ruling party and assassinating the party leader.

The video and book are in contrast to the more measured tones used by Breivik in 2009 and 2010 in comments on blogs on a Norwegian website critical of Islam, www.documents.no.

"What most people still do not understand is that the ongoing Islamicisation of Europe cannot be stopped before one gets to grips with the political doctrine which it make possible (and the individuals which front these doctrines)," he wrote in October 2009.

Another entry dated Feb. 16 last year said: "According to two studies, 13 percent of young British Muslims aged between 15 and 25 support al Qaeda ideology."

He does not advocate violence in any of the comments.

Breivik wrote he was a backer of the "Vienna School of Thought", which was against multi-culturalism and the spread of Islam. He also wrote he admired Geert Wilders, the populist anti-Islam Dutch politician, for following that school.

The Vienna reference seems to concern the halt of the Ottoman Turkish invasion at Vienna in 1683.

Wilders said in a statement on Saturday: "I despise everything he stands for and everything he did."

QUIET AT SCHOOL

Breivik was a freemason, said a spokesman for the organisation. Freemasons meet in secretive fraternal groups in many parts of the world.

The suspected killer was also a member of the Oslo gun club and was fond of weightlifting. Police said Breivik carried a pistol and an automatic weapon during the attack, adding he had never before come to the attention of the police.

"He was rather introverted at school, even though he was a good student," said Michael Tomola, who knew Breivik from the age of 13 to 16 at the school they went to in an Oslo suburb.

"I'm very surprised by this (attack). I had a good impression, although he became very engaged in subjects he cared for. He got very extreme about things he cared for," Tomola told Reuters.

The Facebook page set up last week included a variety of interests such as hunting and political and stock analysis.

His tastes in music included classical and trance, a hypnotic form of dance music.

The profile veered between references to political philosophers and gory popular films, TV shows and video games.

Nina Hjerpset-Ostlie, a contributing journalist to the website, said she had met Breivik at a meeting in late 2009.

"The only thing we noticed about him is that he seemed like anyone else and that he had some very high-flying, unrealistic, ideas about marketing of our website," she told Reuters.

Police searched an apartment in an Oslo suburb on Friday, which neighbours said belonged to Breivik's mother.

"It is the mother who lives there. She is a very polite lady, pleasant and very friendly," said Hemet Noaman, 27, an accounting consultant who lives in the same building in the upmarket part of the capital.

"He often came to visit his mother but did not live here."

Breivik, who attended a middle class high school called Handelsgym in Oslo, had also been a member of the Progress Party, the second-largest in parliament. He was a member from 2004-2006 and in its youth party from 1997-2006/2007.

The Progress Party wants far tighter restrictions on immigration, whereas the centre-left government backs multi-culturalism. The party leads some public opinion polls.

A politician who met Breivik in 2002-2003, when he was interested in Oslo politics, said he did not attract attention.

"I got the impression that he was a modest person ... he was well dressed, it seemed like he was well educated," Joeran Kallmyr, 33, an Oslo municipality politician representing the Progress Party, told Reuters.

Progress leader Siv Jensen stressed Breivik had left the party and that she regretted he had been a member.